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ASCD's Whole Child approach to education has advocated for a comprehensive strategy to learning and development that ensures each child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. We believe that when entire communities attend to both the in-school factors and out-of-school influences that affect learning, children will flourish. Over the past several years, we've raised awareness about the whole child approach to education; shared resources to help schools, districts, and communities implement this approach; and seen schools and communities experience the benefits of their whole child practices.

But how well are we, as a nation, supporting the whole child? On this episode of the Whole Child Podcast, we explore ASCD's Whole Child Snapshots and how they can be used to prompt conversations about how well states support the whole child, where they need to improve, and what strategies can help them meet the comprehensive needs of children.

Elizabeth Brito has served as the executive director of Rhode Island ASCD since 2001. Under her leadership, the organization has been the state's leading voice for a whole child approach to education. Prior to retirement from public education in 1998, Brito served as English department chair for the Bristol Warren Regional School District. During her tenure there, she chaired a teacher-led "Thinking/Learning/Study Skills" task force that engaged students and parents in active learning strategies that could be applied across the content areas. This involvement ultimately lead to a Blue Ribbon Award for the school and a Christa McAuliffe Fellowship award for Brito. Follow Rhode Island ASCD on Twitter @riascd.

Josh Garcia is deputy superintendent of Tacoma Public Schools in Washington State. He received ASCD's Outstanding Young Educator Award in 2013 and is currently a member of the ASCD Board of Directors. Throughout his career as a high school math teacher, principal, and administrator, Garcia has worked mainly in urban settings, serving the most vulnerable learners. He has developed a preK–12 standards-based instruction, grading, reporting, and assessment system; a sustainable and comprehensive K–12 instructional coaching model; a districtwide differentiated professional development model; and an accountability model that measures how healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged students are in school. Connect with Garcia on Twitter @Garciaj9Josh.

David Griffith is the senior director of public policy at ASCD where he leads the association's efforts to influence education decision-making at the local, state, and federal levels and oversees the development and implementation of the association's legislative agenda. Previously, he was the director of governmental and public affairs for the National Association of State Boards of Education. Griffith has also served as an aide to Representatives Joe Kolter and Robert Torricelli. He received his bachelor's degree from Villanova University and his master's degree in education from the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education.

Melissa Mellor is ASCD's manager of public policy outreach. In this role she helps to engage ASCD members in education advocacy and promotes education policies that support the whole child. Previously, she worked on high school redesign initiatives at the Council of Chief State School Officers and researched state education policy issues at Education Week's Editorial Projects in Education. Mellor received her bachelor's degree from Wake Forest University and her master's degree in public relations and corporate communications from Georgetown University's School of Continuing Studies.

Next Steps for Supporting the Whole Child Approach

The Whole Child Snapshots aim to prompt exploration and action in support of students' learning, development, and well-being. Educators, families, and the public can use the following suggestions to improve their community's approach to whole child education.

Communicate

Discuss the information in the snapshot with your friends, colleagues, community members, and policymakers.

Implement

Refer to the snapshot's action steps for initial ideas on how communities can work together to support the whole child.

Check out ASCD's school-level indicators for details on how schools can help ensure that students are healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.

Use ASCD's School Improvement Tool, a free online needs assessment survey, to measure your school's or district's performance on the whole child indicators and components.

Access additional resources, including examples of schools that support the whole child and podcasts on whole child topics.

Schedule a free consultation with ASCD to see what online, on-site, or blended professional development solutions can help you improve in the areas where you face the most challenges.

Advocate

Read ASCD's legislative agenda, which outlines the association's public policy priorities. ASCD's 2015 Legislative Agenda calls on federal policymakers to establish a broader, more ambitious national goal that moves beyond college, career, and citizenship readiness to the successful development of the whole child at every level of the education system.

ASCD is dedicated to excellence in learning, teaching, and leading. At the heart of our work is our commitment to the whole child.

The ASCD Whole Child approach is a pathway to sustainable school improvement—that is, by creating a culture and climate where students are healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged, schools will increase student engagement, increase attendance, reduce disciplinary referrals, increase academic credits earned, and increase graduation rates. The approach pulls together current school initiatives for greater support and strengthens school and classroom strategies to meet the needs of each student.

In 2012, ASCD selected 10 schools from a nationwide pool of 142 applicants to participate in the Whole Child Network, a three-year research effort to evaluate implementation of ASCD's Whole Child approach. The Whole Child Network provided organization and support for member schools implementing ASCD's Whole Child practices with their students, staff, and communities.

On this episode of the Whole Child Podcast, host Donna Snyder, ASCD's manager of Whole Child Implementation, and guests explore the approach's process, implementation, and outcomes.

"The many accomplishments that our school community has gained from being a part of the Whole Child Network of schools was truly a testament of how focused and determined our entire school has been. The fabric of collaboration and commitment has been laid and we are ready to sustain the great work we've started." —Sandra D'Avilar

Teachers that are more reflective are more effective in the classroom. The difference between learning a skill and being able to implement it effectively resides in our capacity to engage in deep, continuous thought about that skill. In other words, recognizing why we do something is often more important than knowing how to do it. Reflective practitioners are intentional in their actions, accurately assess their impact, adjust their actions on-the-fly, and engage in ongoing reflection.

On this episode of the Whole Child Podcast, we explore how to develop and grow our capacity for success through self-reflection and its impact on student learning, the quality of our schools, and the state of our profession.

Kim Price has been a teacher for 15 years and has only worked in Title 1 schools. Currently she is teaching 5th grade at Sun Valley Elementary School in Reno, Nevada. Connect with Price on Twitter @thisteacherocks.

Pete Hall is a veteran school administrator and professional development agent who has dedicated his career to supporting the improvement of our education systems. Besides partnering with Alisa Simeral on two books together, he authored The First-Year Principal (Scarecrow Education, 2004) and Lead On! Motivational Lessons for School Leaders (Eye on Education, 2011). Hall currently works as an educational consultant as a member of the ASCD Faculty and trains educators worldwide. Connect with Hall on Twitter @EducationHall.

Good thinking doesn't happen without practice. What are your habits of reflection?

The school is committed to improving the physical and social-emotional health of each student. Since many of the students' home neighborhoods are not considered safe for outside play, the school has reworked its master schedule to allow for increased physical education periods and additional free play time connected to lunch periods. Magnolia Elementary also conducts movement sessions via its after-school intervention program.

The school has a mental health cohort that meets six times per year to evaluate the support the school is providing to teachers, staff, and students. As a Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (or PBIS, as it's often known) school, Magnolia Elementary believes in emphasizing positive behaviors and teaching character. To build a greater sense of school community, the school has created five "houses" on campus, and each house aligns with a specific character trait: responsibility, respect, cooperation, encouragement, and perseverance.

For this tremendous dedication and its many accomplishments, Magnolia Elementary is the 2015 winner of the Vision in Action: The ASCD Whole Child Award. On this episode of the Whole Child Podcast, you’ll hear from Principal Patricia Mason, Assistant Principal Stacey McCord, Title 1 Teacher Specialist Tara Sample, and teachers Kimberly Wheeler and Lauren Donnelly.

How are you creating a culture and climate of support and success in your school? How do you know that you're succeeding?

Magnolia Elementary School is the sixth recipient of the Vision in Action: The ASCD Whole Child Award. Listen to previous award-winning schools as they share their stories and explain how they ensure that each child in their community is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged:

Students enter the classroom with their own specific learning needs, styles, abilities, and preferences. They also bring with them their own cultures, backgrounds, and personal histories. In culturally responsive classrooms, teachers make standards-based content and curricula accessible to students and teach in a way that students can understand from their varying cultural perspectives. If the goal is for each student to succeed academically, how are we using the cultural capital available in our classrooms to capture attentions, engage students, and make curricula relevant?

On this episode of the Whole Child Podcast, Sean Slade, ASCD's director of whole child programs, and guests explore what it means to, as Gloria Ladson-Billings writes, "empower students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes"; how to create a positive classroom learning community; and what supports teachers need to serve their diverse students.

Paul Gorski is an associate professor in New Century College and research fellow in the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and founder of EdChange. His work and passion is social justice activism and areas of scholarly focus include anti-poverty activism and education, economic justice, racial justice, environmental justice, and animal rights. Gorski's most recent book, coauthored with Seema Pothini, is Case Studies on Diversity and Social Justice Education. He is also the coauthor, with Katy Swalwell, of the March 2015 Educational Leadership article "Equity Literacy for All." Connect with Gorski on Twitter @pgorski.

Andrew Miller has spent many years in education as a classroom teacher, online teacher, curriculum developer, instructional coach, teacher leader, and education consultant. He has used his skills in authentic intellectual work, online education, project-based learning, game-based learning/gamification, 21st century skills, and culturally responsive teaching to create engaging learning environments for all students. Miller currently serves as a faculty member for the Buck Institute for Education and ASCD. He is also an avid blogger and writes regularly for Inservice, Edutopia, and the Huffington Post on the subjects of student engagement, formative assessment, the Common Core State Standards, project-based learning, and technology integration. Connect with Miller on Twitter @betamiller.

In a special one-on-one conversation, Slade spoke with Geneva Gay, an educational researcher who has contributed significantly to the progression of culturally relevant teaching. Gay is a professor of education at the University of Washington in Seattle, where she teaches multicultural education and general curriculum theory. She is nationally and internationally known for her scholarship in multicultural education, particularly as it relates to curriculum design, staff development, classroom instruction, and intersections of culture, race, ethnicity, teaching, and learning. She has written a number of books and book chapters, including the book Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice, and is a member of the authorship team for the Scott Foresman New Elementary Social Studies Series.

How can teachers make their classrooms and instruction safe and effective for students from a wide range of backgrounds?

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Differentiated instruction is an approach to teaching in which educators actively plan and adjust for students' differences so that instruction suits and supports all students' strengths and needs. It is the process of ensuring that what a student learns, how he or she learns it, and how the student demonstrates what he or she has learned is a match for that student’s readiness level, interests, and preferred mode of learning. There can be differentiation of content, of process, of product, and of learning environment.

On this episode of the Whole Child Podcast, ASCD's Sean Slade and guests explore what differentiated instruction is, what the necessary components of a differentiated learning environment are, and how real teachers are applying differentiation principles and strategies to respond to the needs of all learners.

Kristina Doubet is an associate professor of middle and secondary education at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va. With more than 10 years of experience teaching middle and secondary English, she now prepares future middle and high school teachers for careers in the classroom. She has studied the impact of differentiated instruction on student performance in elementary, middle, and high school classrooms and authored publications on differentiation, curriculum design and formative assessment. Doubet is an ASCD Professional Learning Services Faculty member and serves as a staff developer across the country and abroad for schools and districts implementing the Common Core State Standards, the Understanding by Design® framework, and differentiated instruction.

Jessica Hockett is an education consultant in differentiation, curriculum design, and lesson study. She previously worked as a secondary English, social studies, and math teacher in both general education and gifted programming settings and has published a variety of articles and book chapters related to differentiation, curriculum, and advanced learners. As an ASCD Professional Learning Services Faculty member, Hockett has worked with teachers and leaders in more than 50 school districts on differentiated instruction, curriculum development using Understanding by Design®, and development of programs and services for advanced learners.

Together Doubet and Hockett are coauthoring the upcoming ASCD book Differentiation in Middle and High School: Strategies to Engage All Learners which will include a foreword by Tomlinson and be available in June 2015.

Differentiating instruction is not easy and teaching mastery isn't something that happens overnight. Can you recall the particular school year—or a specific class or student you had—when you felt like differentiated instruction really clicked for you and you felt yourself really excelling in your instruction?

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From specialty schools to courses and programs of study within larger school offerings, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education is an interdisciplinary approach where academic learning is matched with authentic projects. Engaging students in these practical, kid-centered projects develops critical thinking and problem solving skills, fosters creativity, and inspires innovation. Examples of STEM implementation demonstrate new and creative ways to bring education meaningfully to life for students with hands-on, real-world applications.

On this episode of the Whole Child Podcast, ASCD's Walter McKenzie and guests explore what it means to be a "STEM school," its place in a supportive and challenging whole child approach to education, and share working models. Listen to the episode below or download.

Panelists

Jackie Gerstein is an independent thinker and advocates for providing students the education they deserve. She has been teaching in-person and online for several decades and currently teaches master's-level online courses in educational technology for Boise State University, American Intercontinental University, and Western's Governors' University. She believes that one of the responsibilities of the 21st century education is to share resources, ideas, and instructional strategies with other educators. Connect with Gerstein through her blog, User Generated Education, and on Twitter @jackiegerstein.

Pamela Moran has served as superintendent of Albemarle County (Va.) Public Schools since January 2006. She oversees a division with an annual operating budget of $151 million, with more than 1,100 teachers educating 13,000 students in 26 schools. During her tenure, Albemarle County Public Schools has become one of the top performing school divisions in Virginia with an on-time graduation rate of 93 percent. Moran has long had a commitment to providing broad-based and innovative learning opportunities for students, believing that excellence in multiple disciplines provides students with the skills essential to becoming successful as citizens, in the workforce, and in post-secondary education. Connect with Moran through her blog, A Space for Learning, and on Twitter @pammoran.

Amanda Siewert is a passionate new educator who teaches at the Colorado STEM Academy. She began working with Colorado ASCD during her senior year of undergraduate university study and has been active since. Her mission statement is this: "Inspire each child to reach their full potential." This mission carries over into her interest of creating opportunities for teachers to grow as educators into their full potential. Connect with Siewert on Twitter @msaes14.

What does a focus on STEM look like in today's classrooms and across content areas? What are the implications for teaching and learning now and in the not-so-distant future?

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How many times have you heard (or asked), "What does a whole child education look like in a school setting?" Over the years since ASCD launched the Whole Child Initiative, teachers, principals, and administrators have implemented the Whole Child Tenets (healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged) in creative ways in classrooms and schools. Last year, four ASCD Emerging Leaders participated in a grant program to explore the approach through a new lens.

On this episode of the Whole Child Podcast, ASCD's Kevin Scott talks with these leaders about their experiences creating and implementing projects for reading culturally relevant texts in an elementary setting, science in a middle school setting, and leadership for minority students in a high school setting. There's something to learn at every level.

Jessica Bohn is a former science curriculum specialist and high school science teacher and is currently the principal at Gibsonville Elementary in Guilford County, N.C. Bohn has written for Educational Leadership magazine, ASCD Express, Education Update, and the U.S. Department of Education's The Teacher Edition. In addition to being a wife and mother, she is passionate about professional development, teacher development, science education, and weather. Connect with Bohn on Twitter @JessicaBohn.

Fred Ende is a former middle school science teacher and department chair and is currently the assistant director of curriculum and instructional services for Putnam/Northern Westchester Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) in New York. Ende has been a facilitator for the American Museum of Natural History's online professional development program, both written and reviewed manuscripts for the National Science Teachers Association and ASCD, and writes for ASCD's Inservice blog, SmartBlog on Education, and Edutopia, and he serves on the New York State ASCD board of directors and is an ASCD Policy Advisory Committee member. Connect with Ende on Twitter @FredEnde.

Amy Fowler Murphy currently works as chemistry education specialist with the Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Initiative at the University of Montevallo. Prior to her role with this program, Murphy taught high school chemistry in urban and suburban settings for ten years. She is a National Board–Certified teacher and serves on the Alabama ASCD board of directors. Connect with Murphy on Twitter @amykfmurphy.

Krista Leh Rundell spent the first ten years of her career in education as a high school social studies teacher. For the next five years, she served as a curriculum and instructional technology coach supporting K–12 teachers across the district in rigorous curriculum design. Currently she is an ASCD Faculty member focusing on social-emotional learning, curriculum design and instruction, and teacher leadership. Connect with Rundell on Twitter @klrundell.

How have you implemented whole child projects in your classroom, school, or district? What lessons have you learned that you can share?

Are you or someone you know interested in becoming an ASCD Emerging Leader? Applications for the class of 2015 open on February 2. Learn more at www.ascd.org/emergingleaders, or e-mail constituentservices@ascd.org to be notified when the applications open. ASCD Emerging Leaders are accomplished educators with 5–15 years of experience who are highly involved in ASCD and the education community as a whole. ASCD now enrolls more educators in each class than ever before, and offers the grant opportunity to members in their second year of the program. All emerging leaders are provided with opportunities to pursue various leadership pathways, including serving on committees, hosting networking events for educators, advocating for sound education policy, and contributing to ASCD publications.

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Talking and listening are indispensable for learning, but they are also crucial for development and our growth as individuals. Whether developing understanding, conveying meaning, sharing thoughts, sparking new ideas, forming friendships, developing empathy, or even learning how to collaborate and cooperate, the ability to communicate effectively and skillfully is fundamental. On this episode of the Whole Child Podcast, we'll explore how the ability to communicate is being cultivated in the school and classroom.

Annie Huynh is a 4th grade teacher and literacy coordinator at Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter School in Philadelphia, Pa. She is a member of ASCD's 2014 Emerging Leaders program and is the author of the ASCD Express article "Four Ways to Amplify Student Voice."

Erik Palmer is a professional speaker and education consultant from Denver, Colo., whose passion for speaking has been a part of each of his careers. He spent 21 years in the classroom in the Cherry Creek School District in Englewood, Colo., primarily as an English teacher but also as a teacher of math, science, and civics. Palmer is the author of the 2014 ASCD book Teaching the Core Skills of Listening and Speaking and is a featured author in this month’s Educational Leadership

Kevin Scott is a strategic advisor for constituent programs at ASCD, where he facilitates programs and initiatives for younger educators, such as the Emerging Leaders and ASCD Student Chapter He also provides services and consultation to ASCD affiliates. Scott previously spent seven years teaching 7th grade history in Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia, and he has served as education director for other associations.

How do we teach talking and listening skills? Is there a gap between how they are currently being taught and how they should be taught?

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Tune in to the Whole Child Podcast: Changing the Conversation About Education on the first Thursday of every month and listen to archived episodes. Learn more about how we can work at the local, state, and federal levels to ensure that each student is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.